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Because our bodies are already peak technology. I think the 6-million-dollar man thing is a weird goal. Better to regrow, implant, perhaps supplement. Full-o

Because our bodies are already peak technology. I think the 6-million-dollar man thing is a weird goal. Better to regrow, implant, perhaps supplement. Full-on replacement isn’t just a “when” but a “why” and a “how do you expect to do better than evolution”. Titanium is cool! That doesn’t make it better than muscle. Go for a run if you want a better heart

enthulhusiastic 2y ago
[flagged]
- dylan604 2y ago
  You can do plenty of other things good for your heart that is much less damaging to the rest of the body. Running is horrible for joints. Just walking at a brisk pace will get the heart pumping. If we want people to get more active, there are much better things to suggest that go for a run. I ran long distance all through school, and refuse to run for running's sake. Playing soccer is the only running I will do, but at least there's a purpose. Walking, swimming, riding a bike, spin class, whatever are much easier suggestions for couch potatoes to start with
  - kiba 2y ago
    Runnng being bad for your joint is apparently a myth.[1] 1. https://longevity.stanford.edu/lifestyle/2023/08/29/is-running-bad-for-your-knees-research-says-no/ https://longevity.stanford.edu/lifestyle/2023/08/29/is-runni...
    - dylan604 2y ago
      tell that to my knees and ankles. the equipment is much better today than it was back when Moses and I were kids, but there are plenty of other ways of getting people active than jumping straight to running.
    - HPsquared 2y ago
      I always wonder about survivorship bias in studies correlating exercise and health. Someone with joint trouble isn't able to run much, for example. It filters those people out. No doubt there are real benefits, but simple correlation will always have that problem.
  - normie3000 2y ago
    > Walking, swimming, riding a bike, spin class, whatever are much easier suggestions for couch potatoes to start with Apart from walking, one issue with these other suggestions is that they are much less available than running and require special skills.
    - dylan604 2y ago
      prior to 2020, one of the perks a lot this audience had with their job was in office gyms. for the price of a decent pair of running shoes, you could afford a few months of a gym membership. you could also do jumping jacks, or any other number of at cardio exercises from plenty of places with Apple's offering just an example. i would venture a guess there are youtube channels for it as well. to say that exercise is cost prohibitive is just someone looking for excuses.
  - kaba0 2y ago
    How is running bad for our joints? Maybe if you do it on concrete in a bad shoe, but the human body was literally made to run - which is very apparent from its design (our thighs are basically a spring that can “charge up” slowly in the “up” phase of running for less energy usage + no hair and improved thermodynamics (people can literally run for longer distances than most other animals with very few exceptions)), and you can even feel it yourself, like no other sport has such a short getting up to speed phase. If you start running for a week, you will already feel a huge improvement, unlike in tennis or bodybuilding where it might take months to noticeably get better.
perihelions 2y ago
- "how do you expect to do better than evolution" Because our goal is aligned with our actual problem (survival of individual human beings), as opposed to the merely partially-aligned goal of "statistical survival up to reproduction age"? Natural evolution is an unaligned AI, in a sense: powerful, but not helpful. Eventually humanity will defeat this problem, and we won't even need computational parity with natural evolution to do that. Most of that computation is wasted.
- enthulhusiastic 2y ago
  Most of the computation is suffering, but not wasted. It still benefits us. And the computation has to be done even in simulation. Just better to shortcut the suffering. I think bioengineering is a good goal. I think cyborgs are a bad goal.
Dylan16807 2y ago
It's really easy to come up with a better plan than evolution for lots of things. If our bodies were peak, we wouldn't need to use hundred(s) of hours of exercise per year to force muscular and cardiovascular improvements, it would just happen. Muscles wouldn't shrink away in an aggressive attempt to conserve calories, especially not regardless of BMI.
- bamboozled 2y ago
  If our bodies were peak, we wouldn't need to use hundred(s) of hours of exercise per year to force muscular and cardiovascular improvements, it would just happen. Then what would be the point of living if you had nothing to do but wait for updates? How boring. Even a self-improving machine is spending time, not exercising but “designing a better version of itself”. Which is an “exercise”. I hate to say this but I think your comment misunderstands the beauty of life and the challenge behind the struggle to improve. It is a blessed journey. I personally think being fallable and not having full control of my destiny, while scary, is a feature and not a bug. It seems to make existence exciting.
  - Dylan16807 2y ago
    > nothing to do > Which is an “exercise”. You're arguing against a strawman. I'm not complaining about working for self-improvement, I'm complaining about how muscles shrink away so rapidly when not in use. Look at what happens when people are bedridden for a few weeks, that is not good design! And I'm not saying people should automatically look like body builders, I'm saying the baseline should be a healthy level.
    - elcritch 2y ago
      I'm pro genetic modifications for these sort of (slight) changes. We live in entirely different environments and our baselines to be healthy makes sense to me. Of course the next step always seems to be "make superhuman soldiers" or "designer babies".
    - bamboozled 2y ago
kaba0 2y ago
I mean, no, the human heart is absolutely not “peak technology”, not even peak of what is possible in nature (birds have us beaten), but none of these hold a candle to, say, a turbine. The main issue here is the combination of biological tissue/conditions and artificial ones without either giving out.

enthulhusiastic 2y ago

[flagged]

dylan604 2y ago
You can do plenty of other things good for your heart that is much less damaging to the rest of the body. Running is horrible for joints. Just walking at a brisk pace will get the heart pumping. If we want people to get more active, there are much better things to suggest that go for a run. I ran long distance all through school, and refuse to run for running's sake. Playing soccer is the only running I will do, but at least there's a purpose. Walking, swimming, riding a bike, spin class, whatever are much easier suggestions for couch potatoes to start with
- kiba 2y ago
  Runnng being bad for your joint is apparently a myth.[1] 1. https://longevity.stanford.edu/lifestyle/2023/08/29/is-running-bad-for-your-knees-research-says-no/ https://longevity.stanford.edu/lifestyle/2023/08/29/is-runni...
  - dylan604 2y ago
    tell that to my knees and ankles. the equipment is much better today than it was back when Moses and I were kids, but there are plenty of other ways of getting people active than jumping straight to running.
  - HPsquared 2y ago
    I always wonder about survivorship bias in studies correlating exercise and health. Someone with joint trouble isn't able to run much, for example. It filters those people out. No doubt there are real benefits, but simple correlation will always have that problem.
- normie3000 2y ago
  > Walking, swimming, riding a bike, spin class, whatever are much easier suggestions for couch potatoes to start with Apart from walking, one issue with these other suggestions is that they are much less available than running and require special skills.
  - dylan604 2y ago
    prior to 2020, one of the perks a lot this audience had with their job was in office gyms. for the price of a decent pair of running shoes, you could afford a few months of a gym membership. you could also do jumping jacks, or any other number of at cardio exercises from plenty of places with Apple's offering just an example. i would venture a guess there are youtube channels for it as well. to say that exercise is cost prohibitive is just someone looking for excuses.
- kaba0 2y ago
  How is running bad for our joints? Maybe if you do it on concrete in a bad shoe, but the human body was literally made to run - which is very apparent from its design (our thighs are basically a spring that can “charge up” slowly in the “up” phase of running for less energy usage + no hair and improved thermodynamics (people can literally run for longer distances than most other animals with very few exceptions)), and you can even feel it yourself, like no other sport has such a short getting up to speed phase. If you start running for a week, you will already feel a huge improvement, unlike in tennis or bodybuilding where it might take months to noticeably get better.

perihelions 2y ago

- "how do you expect to do better than evolution" Because our goal is aligned with our actual problem (survival of individual human beings), as opposed to the merely partially-aligned goal of "statistical survival up to reproduction age"? Natural evolution is an unaligned AI, in a sense: powerful, but not helpful. Eventually humanity will defeat this problem, and we won't even need computational parity with natural evolution to do that. Most of that computation is wasted.

enthulhusiastic 2y ago
Most of the computation is suffering, but not wasted. It still benefits us. And the computation has to be done even in simulation. Just better to shortcut the suffering. I think bioengineering is a good goal. I think cyborgs are a bad goal.

Dylan16807 2y ago

It's really easy to come up with a better plan than evolution for lots of things. If our bodies were peak, we wouldn't need to use hundred(s) of hours of exercise per year to force muscular and cardiovascular improvements, it would just happen. Muscles wouldn't shrink away in an aggressive attempt to conserve calories, especially not regardless of BMI.

bamboozled 2y ago
If our bodies were peak, we wouldn't need to use hundred(s) of hours of exercise per year to force muscular and cardiovascular improvements, it would just happen. Then what would be the point of living if you had nothing to do but wait for updates? How boring. Even a self-improving machine is spending time, not exercising but “designing a better version of itself”. Which is an “exercise”. I hate to say this but I think your comment misunderstands the beauty of life and the challenge behind the struggle to improve. It is a blessed journey. I personally think being fallable and not having full control of my destiny, while scary, is a feature and not a bug. It seems to make existence exciting.
- Dylan16807 2y ago
  > nothing to do > Which is an “exercise”. You're arguing against a strawman. I'm not complaining about working for self-improvement, I'm complaining about how muscles shrink away so rapidly when not in use. Look at what happens when people are bedridden for a few weeks, that is not good design! And I'm not saying people should automatically look like body builders, I'm saying the baseline should be a healthy level.
  - elcritch 2y ago
    I'm pro genetic modifications for these sort of (slight) changes. We live in entirely different environments and our baselines to be healthy makes sense to me. Of course the next step always seems to be "make superhuman soldiers" or "designer babies".
  - bamboozled 2y ago

kaba0 2y ago

I mean, no, the human heart is absolutely not “peak technology”, not even peak of what is possible in nature (birds have us beaten), but none of these hold a candle to, say, a turbine. The main issue here is the combination of biological tissue/conditions and artificial ones without either giving out.